Everybody misses the key information here - it’s a Belarusian app. CEO and CTO are Belarusian (probably there are more C-level people who are Belarusian or Russian). Not only are users giving up their private information but they are doing so to the malevolent (by definition) regimes.

When the Western app says they don’t sell or give out private information, you can be suspicious but still somewhat trustful. When a dictator-ruled country’s app does so, you can be certain every character you type in there is logged and processed by the government.

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ramanh 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

The company cut all ties with Belarus more than three years ago, and all employees relocated to Europe.

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graemep 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Where in Europe? Belarus is in Europe, and so is much of Russia (the largest European country). Plenty of variation in the rest of Europe.

What do you mean by cut all ties? The owners and management have no assets in Belarus or ties to the country?

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ramanh 2 days ago | parent [-]

you can open "contact us" page on their website.

	▲	graemep 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Not sure how that helps answer my question. A list of contact addresses is not a list of all locations, or all employees or all a contractors or all shareholders or all financial interests. The one thing the site tells me is that it is operated by two separate companies - Flo Inc and Flo health UK. The directors of Flo Health Limited live in the UK and Cypress, two are Belarusian nationals and one Russian.

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pllbnk 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

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dang 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Please don't post nationalistic flamebait to HN. It leads to nationalistic flamewars, which are a bad thing on this site.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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pllbnk 21 hours ago | parent [-]

That's fair, I apologize. I just meant to point out that these people are the prisoners of their regimes regardless of where they live, hence the inability to trust their actions not because of their personal prejudices but their inherent ties to their origins. However I understand it was worded in such a way which might have looked like attack on their nationalities or personalities, which it wasn't.

	▲	dang 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Even invoking a concept like "inherent ties to origin" is inflammatory and likely to have a flamebait effect. HN is a highly international community and we need to respect each other as individuals, each with our own distinct background. Otherwise it quickly turns into a battlefield, which does no good.

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Chris2048 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It looks like many of them now live outside Belarus; should have changed their names, and/or fired any slavic nationals?

* Dmitry Gurski; CEO

* Tamara Orlova; CFO

* Anna Klepchukova; Chief Medical Officer

* Kate Romanovskaia; Chief Brand & Communications Officer

* Joëlle Barthel; Director of Brand Marketing

* Nick Lisher (British); Chief Marketing Officer

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achempion 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I would encourage you to read about the Edward Snowden guy and the PRISM program on wikipedia and most recent attempts of EU to ban the encryption.

Also, here is what Pavel Durov mentioned recently in interview to Tucker Carlson

> In the US you have a process that allows the government to actually force any engineer in any tech company to implement a backdoor and not tell anyone about it with using this process called the gag order.

It doesn't matter what anyone claims on the landing page. Assume if it's stored somewhere, it'll get leaked eventually and the transitioning/hosting government already has an access and decryption keys.

	▲	pllbnk 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		You are right. I still think it’s better if only our guys have this information than both, our guys and their guys. At least Western companies have the possibility to get regulated if political winds change.

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Culonavirus 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> When the Western app says they don’t sell or give out private information, you can be suspicious but still somewhat trustful.

Hey guys, that ycombinator "hacker" forum thing full Champagne socialists employed by the Zucks/Altmans/Musks of the world told me everything is fine and I shouldn't worry. I remain trustful.

Surely not even some, ahem, spilled tea can't possibly occur again, right? I remain trustful.

Speaking of tea, surely all the random "id verification" 3rd parties used since the UK had a digital aneurysm have everything in order, right? I remain trustful.

---

Nah, I'll just give my data to my bank and that's about it. Everyone else can fuck right off. I trust Facebook about as much as I trust Putin.